December 12, 1941
CANADIAN JEWISH REVIEW
COMMENTARIES
fContinued from Paffe Threes
"As for the General Zionist party, we all must be general Zionists first of all, the moment we step into Zionism. The General Zionist Party must be given credit for raising capital, and historically it played its part.
"But today, the same as the Liberal Party in Great Britain, with its laissez-faire and laissez-aUez, at the time when a creed is not enough, when a policy of colonization is necessary, the General Zionist Party* not having any such po'icy, supports one day the Histadruth, the next day the Mizrachi, and at some uncanny moment, the Judenstaat Party.
"The co-operative form of colonization, set forth by the Histadruth as a policy of resettlement of Pa'estine, with its Avodah Atzmith and the KJbush Ha'ayodah, seems handed down to us almost in a prophetical way by the creators of Judaism themselves. You must know that the Histadruth policy of colonization is not only from the moral standpoint the highest expression of Biblical justice, but it had proven in practice to be the most conducive to the realization of the Zionist ideal, because it provides for the most extensive possibilities of absorption of new immigrants and their self-support in collectives or Kvootzoth.
But, Al tagidu b'gath, the actual management of the Histadruth, calls for some overhauling.' The Histadruth was established by the sublimest spirit that was dormant in the Jewish people for generations, and which found its expression in the neo-Chalutzim. But the makers of the Histadruth were and mostly still are Golus children. They have brought with them from the Polish and Lithuanian small town the purest of idealism together with the petty provincialism, and the unpolished doings. In practice, there is occasionally shortsightedness and lack of mat we self-restraint.-
"If that is so with the Histadruth, it is so very much more with the Zionist Labour organizations in the diaspora. You must have experienced the painful feeling of having ail your sympathies with the Zionist Labour movement, and yet, because of poor management, and because of the heterogen-ous elements composing it, or at the head of it, not being able to act with it
"This is the reason of my writing to you, dear Rabbi Stern. I am sure of-your sympathies for the Zionist Labour movement and most particularly for the Histadruth. But you could not place yourself on their apple-cart for some of the above reasons. , �
'But the Bialiks, the Brandeises and the Ussishkins have i gone. Weizmann is sixty-seven. We must come Up in their wake. There is a mission, the mission of placing ourselves in positions of command in the Histadruth movement, which means I at the Zionist Labour movement in the diaspora. The Histadruth contains aH the necessary principles for leadership. There is need of coming and making them the principles of [the whole Jewish people,
"I have experimented for the last few years in this diree-[tion. I have created a Labour League for Palestine. Not one >f the 'pareve' Leagues which exist in the United States, but m out-and-out Histadruth organization. It succeeded. It is composed not only of the better class business people and professionals, but is endowed with a modern management and form. It has an additional mission: the mission of regei&rat-
the fonns of the Z'onist Labour movement. It is, I be-fieve, one of the most urgent tasks of our time.
"Would it be possible to try this experiment in Montreal ? am certain you have in your congregation a class of busi-�ss peonJe and professionals who are not wholly corroded 1th politics and self-seeking, and who could be made to tm-fersb�nd th*t they would enioy association in a circle of
ilwf 9* a unit of the Zionist World movement, it as a part of the H!*t*dmth abroad.
**I am sure you would enjoy leading it. It would be en-under your control Being a part of the Zionist Labour ivement, you and yoor organization, without any direct *odat*on with the Pdafe-Zfan, could exert a most wholesome oo the o*erhaofmjr of the forms and outlook of If we should h�w� IB Canada a down of
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